Stefano Demiliani WeBlog

SQL Reporting Services... better than what they seem!

The application that we're building at work uses reports a lot and all our reports are built with Crystal Report. I think that Crystal Report is a good tool for building reports, but the Crystal Report engine that come swith Visual Studio is sometimes too much limited (and not so simple to use!)

In these days I was reading something about the new SQL Reporting Services by Microsoft, the new Report Engine that comes with SQL Server (SQL Server 2000 SP3 is required). I think that this is a great tool for reporting, well integrated with SQL Server, well designed and with a wonderful IDE integrated vith VS.NET (Report Designer) for design your report.

The feature that was totally new for me is the Report Subscription: there's a great Web Interface where you can make subscriptions to some reports of your interest and receive them in your mailbox or in a shared folder, in the format you want and at the time you want. Great!!

I was thinking to our application... I think that this could be a great and easy way to export our reports to customers.

Maybe I have to try to convince my working staff to adopt the Reporting Services soon...

There's only a little problem now: the SQL Reporting Services now produce reports only exportable in some predefined formats (PDF, HTML, XML, MHT, TIFF, Excel, CSV) or viewable via Web... there's not (at the moment) a Windows Control that permits to view reports on a Windows Form application (correct me if wrong). Obviously, I know that we can view a Web Page on a Winform Application (for example using the WebBrowser Control), but this is not a great way I think...

However, Reporting Services seems better than what I was thinking...